On the Workbench October 2013

Last month I had the pleasure provided by a visit of a long time friend and his wife to Montreal. It was Olya's first visit to the city and  she seemed to enjoy the experience. While here, Doug wanted to check the limits of his new camera, a Nikon D3200 and took a few photos of some items I had on the workbench. Last night, I received these files and thought I'd post them on the Blog. Unfortunately the work on these miniatures has not advanced beyond the state shown in the photos. 

Cold War Warriors: West German Jagdpanzer Kanone

The Jagdpanzer Kanone 90mm was one of my favorite military vehicles from the 1970s. I like the look both it and the Swedish "S" tank had. Certainly by the mid 1970s the Jagdpanzer Kanone was undergunned and obsolete. I'm unsure of the make and scale of this model, but I suspect it is near 1/48th scale. It was included in a box of assorted items that I picked up one year at Cangames.

WW2 Soviet 57mm AT-Gun ZiS-2 Model 1943

This post about the ZiS-2 57mm AT Gun is an update from August 2009. I was not happy with the previous presentation  of this excellent piece of Soviet equipment and remounted it on a 60mm x 80mm base, so the gun and the crew were both on the same element.

Men In Black: Japanese Ninjas

Long before Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones took to the screen, there was rumoured to be a secret organization that dressed in black and utilized special gadgets. The ninjas were covert agents or mercenaries in feudal Japan. Their functions included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, and they used specialized equipment to complete these tasks.

According to Wikipedia, "By the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868), the tradition of the shinobi had become a topic of popular imagination and mystery in Japan. Ninja figured prominently in folklore and legend, and as a result it is often difficult to separate historical fact from myth. Some legendary abilities purported to be in the province of ninja training include invisibility, walking on water, and control over the natural elements. As a consequence, their perception in western popular culture in the 21th century is often based more on such legend and folklore than on the historical spies of the Sengoku (15th-17th Century) period."

I have completed 3 small "hit teams" that can be used in either the Bushito or Daredevil Adventures RPGs by Fantasy Games Unlimited. These were two of my favorite RPG Games. I ran a Daredevil's campaign and my good buddy Harris, ran the Bushito Game for our happy band of tabletop warriors.

Cold War Warriors: 20mm Soviets

This was a project that never got off the ground. Back in the mind 1990s I was visiting Toronto to attend a Rolling Stones Concert and I made a side trip to a game store that I think was located just off Queen Street.

 I picked up a couple of packs of what I think were Platoon 20 Modern (mid 1980s) Soviets. I recently painted and mounted the final figures and applied a wash of Transparent Burnt Umber to them all.

The heavy weapons Pack included the RPG-7, the Sagger AT-3 missle and IMO the star of the Rambo III movie, the Soviet 30mm AGS-17 Plamya Automatic Gernade Launcher. The miniature is a poor presentation of this weapon system.  

Sacred Martian Grove: Blood Crystals

Battlefield in a Box: Blood Crystals (BB541)

Last weekend I received a belated birthday present from my cousin. This is certainly not an item that I would normally purchase for myself but would be happy to find them in a deleted item bin or at a deep discount sale. I immediately thought that these would make a perfect Martian terrain piece for Space 1889 as a Sacred Grove.

In this photo I have included my standard 25mm Griping Beast Roman figure for scale and a Space Wolf  in terminator armour. I will pick up some autumn foliage to provide reds and yellows Martian plant life.

The bases were covered with Liquitex Resin Sand, that included a paint mix of  roughly 1 part red to 4 parts Raw Sienna. I then lightly sprinkled on some brown/red  ballast, which I think was a Woodland Scenics product. After drying overnight I painted over the soil with a watered down GW dark flesh.

Black Rider

Over the years I picked up a fair number of the LOTR figures by Games Workshop. To give them their due, Games Workshop produced a  beautiful line of figures, but too expensive for my blood.  I for one, would wait for 50% sales at local game stores or a lucky deal on e-Bay.

This Black Rider was a single loose figure I recently found mixed in a pile of minis I had stored away. I've been searching in town  for a package of 40mm or 50mm round magnetic bases by GF9. It's a product that seems to have been dropped by the wayside here in Montreal. So I mounted the figure on a 40mm x 40mm wooden base..

The figure was subject to a quick paint-job. Overall black, with gray dry brushed highlights and oiled steel for the sword.